The Conversation

Their children became sick, and they wanted to know why. Nelufar Hedayat brings together two women who identified toxic water supplies that were poisoning their children and their communities.

Phyllis Omido is a Kenyan activist who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015. Phyllis was working for a smelting factory in Mombasa, when she found out that her breast milk was giving her baby lead poisoning. She then discovered that the toxic waste had entered the local water supply and was affecting the health and lives of 3000 people living nearby. She fought for the closure of the factory and is now suing for compensation for the villages.

LeeAnne Walters led a grassroots citizens' movement in Flint, Michigan in the US and exposed a water crisis. She wanted to know why her twins had a rash and hair loss and why their water had turned brown. LeeAnne started gathering evidence and proved that since the water supply had been changed, rates of lead poisoning had increased. She also won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 for her campaign that convinced the state to stop using unsafe water.

(L) LeeAnne Walters (credit: Michael Gleason Photography/Goldman Environmental Prize)

What does it take for a woman to excel in the ruthlessly competitive, male-dominated world of chess? Kim Chakanetsa meets two outstanding female players from Hungary and China to find out.

Judit Polgar is the strongest female chess player of all time. As a child prodigy she broke Bobby Fischer's record to become the youngest grandmaster, aged 15. She went on to beat the World No 1 Garry Kasparov, after he had said women shouldn't play chess. Judit says she made a decision very early not to play in the Women's competition, because she wanted to play the best, and they were men. She remains the only woman ever to place in the top 10 players in the world, despite retiring 4 years ago.

Hou Yifan is widely considered to be the best woman playing chess today. She has been the Women's World Chess Champion three times, the youngest ever to win the title, as well as the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of grandmaster. Yifan has now decided not to play in the Women's Championship anymore. She took time out of competing to study for a degree and is about to do a Masters at Oxford University, because she believes doing other things is beneficial to her and to her chess.

Image: (L) Hou Yifan. Credit: Getty Images

In the art world, how much power do women hold? In 2017, of the top 100 artists whose work fetched the highest amount at auction, just 13 were women. Two female art-dealers who have pioneered Czech and Asian art on the international scene, discuss how that affects the way they value and sell art made by women.

Pearl Lam is an iconic art dealer and a pioneer in raising the profile of Chinese art. She is the founder of Pearl Lam Galleries which operate in Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong. She is considered a powerhouse within Asia's contemporary art scene and says that although it is all about the art, not the artist, she has become aware of issues with gender and diversity.

Katherine (Kacha) Kastner co-founded the gallery Hunt Kastner in Prague in 2005 at a time when there was no established tradition of commercial galleries in the Czech Republic. The goal was to offer a more professional representation of Czech artists both locally and internationally. She says that though she would never choose an artist based on their gender, she is trying to do more to promote female artists.

Left: Katherine Kastner (credit: Jiri Thyn)

We meet two women who earn a six-figure salary by sharing their lives, fashion tips and their most personal moments on social media. Kim Chakanetsa delves into this digital world of influencers and finds out how to be successful in marketing online.

French-Cameroonian Freddie Harrel left her career in banking to start a fashion blog. She also writes about her own personal struggles and hopes to inspire other women to embrace their natural selves.

Anum Bashir from Qatar blogs under the persona 'Desert Mannequin' and wants to challenge the pursuit of perfection and the popularity of cosmetic surgery in the Middle East.

Image: (L) Freddie Harrel Credit: Tom Harrel

Why do women earn less than men across the world, and what can be done to narrow this gender pay gap? Two experts from Italy and Kenya give their ideas on how to make the workplace more equal and pay women what they are worth.

Paola Diana (@paoladiana_) is the founder of PariMerito or Equal Merit, an organisation through which she lobbied the Italian government to pass new equality laws in the workplace, including one requiring company boards to have at least 30% women. Paola started her own businesses as a single mother of two, and believes real change will only come from all nations having more women at the top of politics, business and industry. She is also the author of 'Saving The World - Women: The Twenty First Century's Factor for Change'.

Dr Njoki Ngumi (@njokingumi) is a writer, physician and feminist thinker who has held positions in private and public health care sectors in Kenya. She is now coordinating learning and development for the NEST Collective, a Kenyan multidisciplinary artistic squad. She also works at HEVA Fund, Africa's first creative economy catalyst fund. In her experience, official gender gap statistics fail to reflect the reality of most women's work in Kenya, which tends to be informal, and in low wage manual jobs. Thus she says the biggest change would come from improving pay and conditions for domestic workers.

(L) Image and credit: Paola Diana

Planting, pruning and giving the orders - Kim Chakanetsa meets two female head gardeners who are challenging the idea that gardening is a hobby for women but a career for men.

Sharon Cooke runs Andromeda Botanic Gardens in Barbados, the only Royal Horticulture Society Partner Garden in the West Indies. The garden was created in the 1950s by award-winning horticulturist Iris Bannochie. After Iris died, the garden fell into decline, but Sharon is now restoring it to its former glory. Sharon says that when people ask to meet the Head Gardener, they usually expect a man, and are surprised to see that she is in charge.

Sandra Pella has been the Head Gardener at the public Toronto Botanical Garden in Canada since 2008. Sandra is self-taught, but came from a family of green-fingered farmers. She quit her job at a bank and made the change from gardening as a hobby, to gardening as a profession. She says that because of her gender, people sometimes don't believe she is strong enough to use a wheelbarrow or climb a ladder.

(L) Image: Sandra Pella. Credit: Paul Zammit

Women making history on the snow and ice. Kim Chakanetsa meets two female athletes who are pioneers in their winter sports.

Simidele Adeagbo is a Nigerian who is the first African woman to compete in the skeleton category of the Winter Olympics. Originally a track and field athlete, she set out to break barriers in winter sports but was faced with the challenge of no snow or tracks to practise on. The first time she touched a skeleton sled was in 2017, but she qualified for the Pyeongchang Games earlier this year.

Lindsey Marie Van is a veteran of women's ski jumping, and was instrumental in fighting for its inclusion in the Olympics. Lindsey campaigned and was part of a gender discrimination lawsuit. After 90 years of male ski jumping, one competition was finally added for women at the 2014 Sochi games (men have three chances to compete). After this huge victory, Lindsey's recurrent knee injury forced her to retire. The Utah athlete was, however, a 16-time national champion and the 2009 world champion.

(L) Lindsey Van (credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images)

Explosions in classrooms and a commute threatened by bombs and bullets - academics from Yemen and Syria who found themselves working through a civil war. Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women who are passionate about educating their country's next generation, but were forced to leave them behind when they fled to safety in Europe. They discuss why they had to make that painful decision, and how they are continuing their work in exile.

Dr Fathiah Zakham is an award winning Yemeni microbiologist whose research focuses on drug-resistant tuberculosis. She was based at Hodeidah University, a port city in Yemen that came under rebel control in 2015. Despite her institution being destroyed by an air attack, Fathiah stayed in Yemen and even won a global award for female researchers. But eventually the situation became impossible and she left for Switzerland in 2017. She is now doing post-doctoral work at the University Hospital of Lausanne.

Reem Doukmak is a Syrian linguist and was working at Al Baath University in Homs, a city at the heart of the uprising against the government in 2011. Homs has been under siege for much of the time since. Reem endured two years living in a war zone before managing to leave Syria with the help of a charity. Reem is now continuing her studies at Warwick University in the UK and she also volunteers as a translator for other refugees.

(L) Image and credit: Reem Doukmak

Travelling alone while female - what's the reality? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two wanderlust women who won't let sexism stop them from adventuring into different cities, countries and hemispheres.

Meruschka Govender is a travel activist, and experience seeker from South Africa. She regularly backpacks around the continent, but says she always felt that there was a local voice missing in African travel writing, so she began her blog Mzansi Girl. When Meruschka first started travelling solo, as a woman of colour she was seen as unusual, but she says things are now changing.

Atikah Amalina is a Singaporean traveller who writes the popular blog The Tudung Traveller. In an age of travel bans and Islamophobia, Atikah travels solo in a hijab, encountering sexism and racism as a Muslim woman, but also friendship and generosity. She says that she tries to be a bridge to a better understanding of Islam for the people she encounters.

Image: Atikah Amalina (L) and Meruschka Govender (R), female solo World travellers.

What does it take to be the world’s best teacher and win a million dollars at the same time? We meet two women who have won the Global Teacher Prize for transforming the lives of their students.

Maggie Macdonnell teaches at a school in a small and remote Inuit village in northern Quebec on the Arctic circle. It's an isolated place and there are few jobs for the young. Maggie has made it her mission to do something about the shocking levels and drug abuse and suicide amongst teenagers.

Main image: (L) Maggie Macdonnell (image credit: The Varkey Foundation) and (R) Andria Zafirakou (image credit: The Varkey Foundation)